To be, or not to be… poor

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Anthony

I suspect it was done by a third party. IME the common use of "You get what you pay for" is in reaction to someone picking a cheap option and discovering that it's crappy.

It seems to be commonly attributed to Kurt Vonnegut these days, though it clearly shouldn't be. The oldest hit on "get what you pay for" I'm seeing on Google Ngrams that seems to unambiguously share the same sense is from 1908.

Essentially it's just a restatement of the assertion that markets works. Since markets actually don't do too badly in practice, it tends to be more true than not, but there are exceptions. The places it tends not to hold are the same ones that give the free market system trouble in general: goods that are unique or not actually perfectly interchangable, exchanges where parties lack perfect information, comparison to consumers with different utility functions, the ever popular water-diamonds problem of value....

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by malloyd

The places it tends not to hold are the same ones that give the free market system trouble in general: the ever popular water-diamonds problem of value....

That one, at least, was solved in the 19th century by the theory of marginal utility.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

If you can do that in real life, I think you forgot to post that in the font that can't be read by non-Illuminated people.

Ah, right. I read hastily and misunderstood what was being said.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

...which makes the item special. Not functionally different from a non-Signature Gear version (unless your GM hates regular gear and makes it less effective...), but special nonetheless.

Okay, so we're disagreeing about what ordinary and special mean. I mean the difference between a thing you might be able to buy in a shop for an affordable price versus something unique or so unaffordable that it would take great effort or be impossible to buy it.

Signature Gear is not necessarily special in this way. The way it's "special" is that it's "special to you," as part of your personal legend. You have a connection with it. It's not about anything inherent in the Gear; it's about your connection with it.

Why wouldn't they? It's literally what you paid the points for: a thing that the GM won't take away, or will let you replace, or failing that will give you back the points.

No, you paid character points for a thing that you don't have to pay cash for or which you would otherwise have needed an Unusual Background for so long as it's part of your personal legend. The fact that it comes back if lost is just a reflection that you paid points for it and so deserve it; it's not the primary purpose of the advantage.

The thing is that that last option, if exercised, makes the Advantage have been worthless from the beginning. So either it's a ridiculous murphy, or you're supposed to understand that there's a strong preference for the other resolutions.

If you think the point of Signature Gear is to protect your stuff from a malicious GM who can still take your Signature Gear away anyway, then yes, the advantage is worthless.

But that's not the point of Signature Gear. The point is to have a thing without paying cash for it, or to be the equivalent of an Unusual Background explaining how you got it. It's a different way to get stuff. The caveat is that the stuff has to be part of your personal legend.

The bit about returning it, replacing it, or refunding it is just on the chance that you lose it. It works under the presumption that the GM is NOT arbitrarily taking it away from you. If the GM is deliberately trying to hose you, a little bit of text isn't going to help you.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

Okay, so we're disagreeing about what ordinary and special mean. I mean the difference between a thing you might be able to buy in a shop for an affordable price versus something unique or so unaffordable that it would take great effort or be impossible to buy it.

Signature Gear is not necessarily special in this way. The way it's "special" is that it's "special to you," as part of your personal legend. You have a connection with it. It's not about anything inherent in the Gear; it's about your connection with it.

You can't buy your Signature Gear in a shop unless you pawned it at some point. There may be many like it, but this one and very specifically this one is yours.

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

No, you paid character points for a thing that you don't have to pay cash for or which you would otherwise have needed an Unusual Background for so long as it's part of your personal legend. The fact that it comes back if lost is just a reflection that you paid points for it and so deserve it; it's not the primary purpose of the advantage.



If you think the point of Signature Gear is to protect your stuff from a malicious GM who can still take your Signature Gear away anyway, then yes, the advantage is worthless.

But that's not the point of Signature Gear. The point is to have a thing without paying cash for it, or to be the equivalent of an Unusual Background explaining how you got it. It's a different way to get stuff. The caveat is that the stuff has to be part of your personal legend.

The bit about returning it, replacing it, or refunding it is just on the chance that you lose it. It works under the presumption that the GM is NOT arbitrarily taking it away from you. If the GM is deliberately trying to hose you, a little bit of text isn't going to help you.

If you think the core purpose of Signature Gear is to be a sub-par way to convert points into goods, I don't think there's any point in discussion between us here.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

The thing is that that last option, if exercised, makes the Advantage have been worthless from the beginning. So either it's a ridiculous murphy, or you're supposed to understand that there's a strong preference for the other resolutions.

If using the AtE version, this is true. If using the Basic Set version (which covers the item's cost), you got the utility of having the item for a time. That's not as good as getting plot protection, but it's not quite useless (it would be a horrible deal if the points weren't refunded, but then I'm not a fan of trading points for cash in the first place).

Originally Posted by whswhs

Ah, right. I read hastily and misunderstood what was being said.

A likely story...

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

If you think the point of Signature Gear is to protect your stuff from a malicious GM who can still take your Signature Gear away anyway, then yes, the advantage is worthless.

The GM need not be malicious for Signature Gear's plot protection to be worthwhile. Sometimes, the plot (or circumstance, or the vagaries of random rolls, or whatever) will deprive the character of one or more pieces of gear, through no fault of the player. Signature Gear guarantees that the affected gear will make its way back into the hands of the character in short order - Indy finds his hat and whip on the way out of the temple, Peter Quill recovers his helmet, pistols, and cassette player while breaking out of jail, and so forth.

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

But that's not the point of Signature Gear. The point is to have a thing without paying cash for it, or to be the equivalent of an Unusual Background explaining how you got it. It's a different way to get stuff. The caveat is that the stuff has to be part of your personal legend.

In AtE, plot protection is all you get out of Signature Gear. In the Basic Set, I honestly think the primary purpose was plot protection, but it is true it gives a much better return than turning points into cash.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

If you think the core purpose of Signature Gear is to be a sub-par way to convert points into goods, I don't think there's any point in discussion between us here.

To be fair, I don't think this is an unusual use-case for Signature Gear. As for being sub-par, it's much better than turning points into cash directly (not that that's saying much...), and you need to be grabbing something worth quite a bit before it's a better deal (in terms of starting cash) to get Wealth - if not applying the 80/20 rule, Wealth is inferior below Very Wealthy [30] (starting with 20xStarting Wealth instead of having one piece of gear worth 15xStarting Wealth; at Wealthy [20], it's 5x vs 10x), but if you do apply it Wealth is inferior below Multimillionaire [75] (starting with 1000xStarting Wealth - adjusted down to 200x - instead of having one piece of gear worth 37.5x; at Filthy Rich [50], it's 100x/20x vs 25x). And that's not accounting for some GM's basing Signature Gear on the character's Wealth (in which case it's always better to grab SigGear than pay for the next Wealth level, at least for purposes of starting play with a starship or whatever).

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

If you think the core purpose of Signature Gear is to be a sub-par way to convert points into goods, I don't think there's any point in discussion between us here.

That's not what I think, but at least we agree on something: this discussion isn't worthwhile.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Tymathee

Something I've noticed which may already be plain as day, is that the Wealth rules and Wealth adjacent traits and rules are simplified and abstracted to the extent necessary to make gaming them enjoyable.

I, on the other hand, find them to be both over-complicated and unrealistic.

[awesomenessofme1]

Relevant to this discussion: Has anyone tried out the Abstract Wealth rules from Pyramid? I have not, personally. They seem workable, but I've noticed a few quirks that might produce odd results.

[CeeDub]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

I'd be happy to write that, but I'm not in a position to jump through SJGames hoops for the privilege.

Kickstarter? I'd be in.